Wirikuta, a desert valley enclave in central Mexico, is the land of founding myths and numerous deities for the Huichol Indians. Each year, they make a pilgrimage to honor the birth of the sun and fire. This coveted territory rich in natural and cultural resources has captured the imagination since the Spanish conquest and inspired many tales. Julien Lombardi combines photographs, videos and installations to immerse us in the transformations and sensitivities that have shaped this sacred land. His work diverts the visual codes of ethnology, archeology and biology to test their limits. Extracting, sampling and cutting are all mirror-gestures of the photographic act and of a technical relationship to the living world. Evoking fantastic realism, Lombardi suggests that the tools used to capture reality can be cross-fertilized with invisible phenomena to experiment new narrative forms.

julienlombardi.com